HOUSTON — In a preview of the sessions planned for the coming week, analysts offered a few predictions for the year ahead — rising natural gas prices in the United States, continued growth in its manufacturing sector and ongoing questions about how quickly the North American shale revolution will spread to the rest of the world.

Monday's opening sessions of IHS CERAWeek 2013 introduced issues that the energy conference will explore in more depth over the next four days. As will be the case for many coming sessions, translations were available Monday in Chinese and Russian, a reflection of the global nature of both the energy business and CERAWeek.

But the energy boom of the past few years has been focused decidedly on North America because of the shale drilling boom that has transformed parts of the country.

John Larson, vice president for economic and public sector consulting at IHS, suggested that the United States now is poised for a manufacturing renaissance.

“I think you'll see more onshoring, displacing imports,” he said.

That's already starting to happen as petrochemical companies and others take advantage of cheap natural gas, which many use both as a fuel and a raw material.

More than 2,000 people are expected to attend at least part of the conference, which continues through Friday at the Hilton Americas in downtown Houston. It will include more than 300 speakers, ranging from researchers to top CEOs, although one, MIT physicist Ernest Moniz, canceled over the weekend.

He had a good excuse: President Barack Obama nominated him Monday as energy secretary.

The conference will cover big themes — oil, natural gas, electric power — and the role that innovation will play in all of those. Exports of liquefied natural gas will come up in several guises, as will the challenges of transporting the new bounty unleashed by advanced drilling technology.

The issue of natural gas prices is of much interest to drillers, as prices have fallen dramatically since 2008 and many say it no longer pays to drill.

Michael Stoppard, managing director of research for IHS, said gas markets will begin to come into balance this year.

At present, natural gas hovers around $3.50 per million British thermal units in the United States, while it is three or even four times that much in Europe and Asia.

Rebalancing won't happen overnight, but Stoppard said it will start this year, with benchmark gas prices moving to about $4, and then to around $5 by 2014.

The international market may not feel the impact of U.S. exports until the end of the decade. The Obama administration has approved only one application to export natural gas, but about a dozen more have been filed and are waiting on a decision.

White House energy and environment adviser Heather Zichal last week acknowledged that the Energy Department is trying to “wrap its head” around the possibility of exports — unthinkable before the domestic drilling boom.

And it's controversial, as it ties in with a projected manufacturing boom underpinned at least partly by the prospect of continued low natural gas prices.

Dow Chemical is leading a small group of manufacturers and chemical makers in a campaign against unlimited natural gas exports, for fear they could send domestic prices higher and weaken the competitive advantage now enjoyed by U.S. companies.

Gary Adams, chief chemicals adviser for IHS, said he sees some $100 billion in new investment earmarked for North American chemical plants, driven by domestic natural gas availability and pricing.

“It's a revolution in manufacturing,” he said, adding that the transformation is “something the industry has not seen” in four decades, if not longer. “The opportunities are not opportunities of a lifetime, it's of multiple lifetimes.”